Valentine’s Day is usually reserved for flowers, cards, and grand gestures. But there is another relationship in your life that quietly demands attention all year round. Your data.

If you ignore it, it gets messy. If you rush it, it becomes unreliable. If you only check in when something goes wrong, the trust starts to fade. Like any good relationship, strong data needs time, consistency, and a bit of care.

The organisations that get the most value from their data aren’t the ones with the fanciest tools. They’re the ones that nurture it.

Start with the small, regular habits. Don’t wait for a major system migration or a reporting crisis to pay attention. Build simple routines into your monthly or quarterly processes. Clean obvious duplicates. Standardise formats. Fix the fields that everyone complains about, but no one owns. These little acts of maintenance prevent the big blow-ups later.

Communication matters too. In many businesses, systems don’t “talk” properly to each other, and teams interpret data in different ways. That’s how trust breaks down. Spend time aligning definitions, agreeing on standards, and making sure everyone understands what the numbers actually mean. Clarity keeps everything healthier.

This is where COAT comes in. If you want a relationship with data that lasts, it needs to be:

Consistent: Use the same naming conventions, formats, and rules across systems so you’re not constantly second-guessing what you’re looking at.

Organised: Know where your data lives, who owns it, and how it flows. Chaos is the enemy of confidence.

Accurate: Regularly sense-check and validate. Even small errors can quietly grow into big reporting problems.

Trustworthy: When people believe the data is right, they use it. When they don’t, they work around it. That’s when value disappears.

The biggest mistake companies make is treating data like a one-off project. Clean it once, tick the box, and move on. In reality, data is constantly changing. New suppliers, new customers, new products, new systems. It needs ongoing attention to stay healthy.

Think of it less like a deep clean and more like tending a garden. A little effort, done often, keeps everything in good shape. Leave it too long, and you’re dealing with weeds everywhere.

So this Valentine’s Day, show your data some appreciation. Put time aside to review it. Fix something small that’s been bothering you. Agree on a standard that will make life easier in the long run.

Because when you look after your data, it looks after you right back.

If you’d like to learn more about nurturing your data and putting its COAT on, check out my books:

FOR PROCUREMENT, FINANCE AND THE BUSINESS Facet Publishing

🟣 Buy Between the Spreadsheets – 20% off with NEW20

FOR SALES AND MARKETING Kogan Page Publishing

🔴 Pre-order Optimizing Sales & Marketing Data – 30% off with PUBMON30